2023-10-08 07:00:00
These are the new tax cowboys. At the end of August, they raided the General Electric site in Belfort. The American giant is suspected of having relocated part of its profits to Switzerland and the tax haven of Delaware. Five months earlier, in March, they had orchestrated simultaneous searches at the headquarters of BNP Paribas, Natixis, HSBC and Société Générale, accused of having allowed their foreign clients to circumvent dividend taxation. They were also the ones who took custody of the former “godfather” of French rugby, Bernard Laporte, and the former minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Welcome to the Financial Judicial Investigation Service (SEJF) in Ivry-sur-Seine. It was in these premises that Gabriel Attal, then Minister of Public Accounts, announced, in May, his major plan to combat tax fraud. With, as a flagship measure, the strengthening of this service, transformed into a national office.
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A real “tax police”
Dependent on Bercy and headed by magistrate Christophe Perruaux, former investigating judge in Marseille and Paris, this service today has a strike force of around 280 officers. In the past, it only employed customs officers, who investigate, at the request of the justice system, merchandise trafficking (drugs, counterfeits, cigarettes, etc.) and, more occasionally, tax fraud, through VAT scams. . In 2009, they uncovered the biggest scam ever committed in France: the embezzlement of 1.6 billion euros of VAT on the CO quota market.2 by a handful of crooks from the Parisian Jewish “milieu”.
Since 2019, these customs officers have been joined by 40 tax agents, trained in judicial investigation techniques, for a year, at the National Customs School of Tourcoing. A real “tax police” with investigative powers identical to those of the police: surveillance, geolocation, telephone tapping, searches, police custody, etc. The full range of techniques used to combat organized crime.
Over the months, this elite unit, which imported an intractable culture of secrecy from the tax authorities, recovered most of the new cases of large-scale tax fraud. Half of these procedures concern assets abroad or the interposition of offshore companies. They can target companies: in addition to General Electric, tax officers are investigating the consulting giant McKinsey, which relocates its profits to Delaware, and the construction group Fayat, which passes through Mauritius. Or wealthy individuals, like the fraudsters exposed in the Dubai Papers, who used an international network specializing in acrobatic arrangements. Finally, some investigations deal with domiciliation issues, as in the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who declares that he is a tax resident in Morocco.
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Each time, the fine sleuths relentlessly track down white-collar delinquency. “The magistrates all highlighted the great expertise of the judicial tax officers of the SEJF, as well as the quality of their investigations,” praises Senator LR Jean-François Husson in a recent report. Anxious to further strengthen the fight against tax fraud, the government has therefore committed to doubling their number, from 40 to 80 agents, with the first recruits arriving in 2025. Especially since the new Bercy unit has not worked on the grounds of the other “tax police”, that of the Ministry of the Interior. Created in 2010, employing 27 tax agents and 18 police officers, this brigade handled the major cases of the past decade, from former minister Jérôme Cahuzac to art dealer Guy Wildenstein.
But internal friction
The transformation of the service into a “national anti-fraud office” should mark the rise of Bercy. According to our information, the ministry wants to make it the priority service in the event of a conflict of jurisdiction with Place Beauvau and has circulated a draft decree to this effect. A hegemonism that goes badly in the police ranks where we detect the beginnings of an unfriendly takeover bid. “It is useful to have a reference service with broad skills and a global vision of tax, social and customs fraud, explains Jérôme Fournel, the general director of the tax administration. Given the needs, the more there are of us the better.” The episode recalls the administrative squabbles, which had already taken place during the creation of the SEJF.
Bercy must also clear up internal frictions. SEJF tax officers threatened in May not to go on operations if compensation for night and weekend hours was not aligned with that of their customs colleagues, which ended up being done. The CFDT is also demanding the same risk premiums and classification in “active category”, which allows people to retire earlier. Social “irritants” which can slow down the proper integration of tax “supercops”.
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